Samsung Your Kies Trash Bricked My Galaxy S
Monday night I reckon I went through every smartphone users nightmare, the bricking of a device. If you are a regular reader of this site, you may know that I am one of the Android faithful and my chosen device at the moment is the Samsung Galaxy S, which in itself is a very good smartphone.
Samsung has finally made Android 2.3 Gingerbread available in the UK, but I have been putting off updating as I found Android 2.2.1 Froyo was doing just fine, but as I kept getting reminders from the Samsung Kies software to update, I made the decision to do so Monday night, much to my annoyance.
Personally, and I can honestly say I am not alone in thinking that Samsung Kies is a nightmare to use, but as the Gingerbread update was available I thought why not. Now when I updated to Android 2.2.1 Froyo, the Kies experience was shall we say, not too great. I backed up my Galaxy S before updating, the back up too ages, it was slower than a snail creeping up hill, but eventually it completed and the update began and after a while my device was now running Froyo so all was well and good.
So Monday evening I expected the same, a slow start but eventually would get there; how wrong could I be? First off I opened Kies and tried to connect my phone, no go, as Kies had to be updated first to a new version. So I disconnected my handset and downloaded the latest version of the Samsung software.
Once it was installed, I opened Kies and connected my Galaxy S, the software would not connect to the device, it simply hung there saying connecting. A pain, but I disconnected, closed and reopened Kies and attempted to connect once again, and again no go.
Now I must emphasise here that before I attempted to connect to Kies my Samsung Galaxy S running Android 2.2.1 Froyo was running perfectly well. However when I again disconnected the handset to attempt yet again, I found my device would not operate.
Basically the handset would turn on, show the Samsung Galaxy S I9000 display, pop up with my T-Mobile screen then go back to the Galaxy I9000 display and stay there. I tried to get into the handset numerous times and failed to get past that pulsing S with the device intermittently vibrating.
Furthermore I couldn’t turn off the handset, the only way possible was to remove the battery, so basically my Galaxy S was useless. Thus I turned to the Internet and searched for any relevant info I could find and discovered that I was not the only one who had the same issue.
The general advice no matter where I searched was, do a hard reset, so basically I would have to hold the volume up button, the home button and power button, and once the phone started release the power and there should be a window pop up allowing you to reset the device back to its factory settings.
I spent numerous hours doing this button holding in several configurations, but alas the handset wasn’t going to allow a hard reset. Thus the only other option was to take my Galaxy S back to the T-Mobile store, which is three towns away.
So yesterday morning I did just that explained the problem I was having and the T-Mobile rep said this problem is quite common with people who use Samsung Kies, there’s nothing you can do, so we’ll have to send the phone for repair. We had another person come in with the same problem last week; Samsung Kies had frozen the device.
So now I am relegated to a Nokia X6 until such times, as my Galaxy S is repaired and ready to be picked up, and all down to using Samsung Kies, basically Samsung’s trash software bricked my handset.
So I thought I would have a moan and groan about Samsung Kies and how it bricked my smartphone here for all to read. It’s about time Samsung got with the program and started delivering updates over-the-air rather than forcing users to suffer having to use inferior software such as Samsung Kies, especially when the result is bricking a handset.
So here’s a suggestion Samsung, go to your garden, dig a very big hole and throw everything to do with Kies into it and then bury the software for ever, as it’s basically rubbish and no good to anyone, drag youself into the 21st Century and start delivering OTA update like almost everyone else.
When I eventually update my device to a new handset, I for one will not be choosing a Samsung device until such times as Samsung stops using Kies. I will of course get another Android handset but as for Samsung, they have lost this customer for good.
That’s my rant over; anyone else had this pain in the butt experience with Samsung Kies? If so feel free to vent your anger with Samsung to our comments area below.
Comments
39 thoughts on “Samsung Your Kies Trash Bricked My Galaxy S”
I was going through exactly the same process as you. Loving Froyo and not really wanting to upgrade the firmware. I updated kies and subsequently CANNOT connect the phone. Yesterday it was hanging there with “connecting” circle turning round and around, but today-no recognition of the phone at all. Luckily for me I have disconnected and googled the problem before it messed the phone up. It is such a shame as it is a great phone, but you are right Kies has got to go.
I am currently watching the circle rotate. I had a problem arise in the last few days (prior to attempting an update from 2.2) that made the phone incredibly slow, the keypad stopped working and the phone would intermittently vibrate. This is the reason I have attempted this upgrade. Kies made me upgrade the software first – which made me think “I wonder if they’ve actually sorted out the software”, but, no, slower than ever – what an absolute dog of a program, I mean WTF?….. so yeah, the upgrade isn’t getting past “connecting…” after the back up stage, so it looks like I’m going to need to call Orange phone support. Yay.
Briallian article … I’ve been ranting for over a year of OTA updates … hate my Samsung Galaxy S because of inferior Kies. Waiting to get the iPhone5
They seriously need to get rid of Kies. Awhile back, I tried it on my laptop and it created all kinds of problems on my computer. So I said the hell with it.
Now, since I was replacing my run down Galaxy S (Vibrant) with a new one, I decided to give it a try since I read somewhere there was Contact and SMS backup support.
After 2 hours of messing around with drivers and installations and updates and tons of error messages, I FINALLY was able to get the “Kies mini” on my desktop computer. All I wanted to do was backup my contacts and text messages. However, it prompted me to do a software upgrade. I thought what the hell…”I might as well test it out on my old phone before I try it on the new one I just got.”
After it finished installing, it took 7 tries just to get the phone to boot without freezing. It put my home screen back to the factory reset. Oh yeah, and nothing seems to be working! When I finally get something to work, it freezes and force closes. And as soon as I let it lock, I have to restart it just to bring it back. SOOO glad I didn’t do this on the new phone I just received…
So much for backing up my SMS messages. At least I was smart enough to export my contacts to the SD first. This phone is trash to me now. Ugh. Nice going, Samsung.
They seriously need to get rid of Kies. Awhile back, I tried it on my laptop and it created all kinds of problems on my computer. So I said the hell with it.
Now, since I was replacing my run down Galaxy S (Vibrant) with a new one, I decided to give it a try since I read somewhere there was Contact and SMS backup support.
After 2 hours of messing around with drivers and installations and updates and tons of error messages, I FINALLY was able to get the “Kies mini” on my desktop computer. All I wanted to do was backup my contacts and text messages. However, it prompted me to do a software upgrade. I thought what the hell…”I might as well test it out on my old phone before I try it on the new one I just got.”
After it finished installing, it took 7 tries just to get the phone to boot without freezing. It put my home screen back to the factory reset. Oh yeah, and nothing seems to be working! When I finally get something to work, it freezes and force closes. And as soon as I let it lock, I have to restart it just to bring it back. SOOO glad I didn’t do this on the new phone I just received…
So much for backing up my SMS messages. At least I was smart enough to export my contacts to the SD first. This phone is trash to me now. Ugh. Nice going, Samsung.
Yes i totally agree.. not only the software is inefficient. It slows down my comuter, hangs in between and refuses to load when i launch it. Trying to upload a movie onto my phone through kies is a nightmare too.
i hope samsung ditches this annoying piece of crap and comes up with something lighter and better.
I had mostly the same experience, ever since getting the updated Kies. Is this sort of problem repairable I wonder.
Even worse to follow; Two weeks ago I bought a Notebook Pro with the new Lion OPS update. Downloaded Kiues for MAC OK so far, then plugged in my Galaxy and was told Kies not compatible with MAc Lion. Probably saved me from another bricking.
Other problems recently include loss of power meter indicating charging, phone switches itself off, cannot switch on unless plugged into charger. charger works but no Kies connection in windows XP.
Waily – waily, waily ! Reading this forum I relize that I am fortunate I did not try to update my brand-spanking-new Samsung Galaxy SII firmware!
I just installed the *#$%& Kies package to transfer my 170 contacts from my old Nokia to my brand-fucking-spanking-new Samsung GT-I9100. The Nokia synchronized the contacts to Outlook in a few seconds. The Kies crapware took 5 HOURS to synchronize the SII !
I then made the massive mistake of using the Kies crapware to edit and organize the contacts, and am now waiting (over 1 hour) for the crapware to save the hontact list to the device (SII). I do not dare interrupt the process…..
This is the first time I have encountered a piece of crapware that manages to hog over 95% of the CPU time doing – well – nothing. Sending 170 x 25 character entries via USB should take a fraction of a second, NOT HOURS!
I updated my phone through Kies too and it froze for over an hour in the process. I could not wait any longer so I turned off my phone. Apparently it was my fault as i should have waited forever and I must pay to re-flash my phone now. shame shameÂ
today’s date- 11-11-11— I had almost the same problem except my phone just doesnt turn on at ALL! i tried to do the update to froyo using kies and once the whole downloading part was done, kies told me to wait till the phone reboots and the never did, EVER.. i tried all mulsiple button combinations, i called SAMSUNG, we went through a series of combinations to try to bring my samsung vibrant back to life, at the end, nothing worked, they told me i would have to send the phone to samsung for repair, so they took down my info and right away the emailed me a shipping form, a paid stamp through my email so that i can print it and ship my phone right away, that’s what i will be doing since there’s no way of bringing this phone back, they also told me that they would do all the updates for me.. it sucks that samsung doesnt have a RELIABLE SOFTWARE for updates, kinda like apple has itunes, samsung should have their own reliable software to download their updates from.. i love the galaxy s phones, only reason im sticking to my samsung vibrant is because the galaxy s3 will be released in the middle of next year so that’s what i will be waiting for.. if any of you have the same problems all i can say is to log on to samsung’s website and talk to them because it will be the only way to fix your phone unless you  can get your phone to download mode.. any questions feel free to email me at dennis.matamoros@gmail.com
100% agree – Samsung Kies is a joke. I have spent hours and hours and hours this week just trying to download and install this ‘functionally-rich software’….which doesn’t download, and doesn’t install. I am used to iTunes, Galaxy Apps, and many other providers simply doing what they say they do and downloading, but this Kies stuff is like the antidote to 21st century technology…maybe they secretly want us to return to pencil and paper.. Samsung – you are an embarrassment to the rest of the techno age, and I wearily give up on you.
yesterday kies BRICKED my samsung galaxy.
after the firmware download my phone went in to download mode and kies said.. It lot connection with phone and needs to be re booted by removing battery and reconnect.. And I did the same and that’s the END.
it BRICKED my galaxy s ;(
Hi, almost to the letter I’ve had the same experience but for one point.
Whilst upgrading the Kies download page warns not to un plug your phone while downloading so when Kies froze and I was left with a pink screen I left it for 2 hours…….just in case.
No hope.
So I took the battery out and, again, after trawling the internet and finding many with multiple variations, I tried the re-set only to have a phone that wont even react to the 3 button shuffle.
I have found a site that will repair any Samsung under 2 years old so that’s my next port of call.
Good luck to you all,
Mactheknife.
kies is rubish its always crashing and crap someone ought to tell samsung how to create a good media playeri am shure there are good web designers out there come on samsung you make enough money out of us kies 0 out of ten
It is a pain in the ass. All I wanted to do is purchase some games. There was a notification for an update. I say why not and boom, it bricked my Vawe 525
I just bricked my new Samsung Galaxy S Plus using Kies and just pressing the update firmware and accepting their terms. People, NEVER use this crap software ! I had to go to work as a doctor without my phone … i should sue Samsung for their incompetence … luckily for them, I agreed to brick my phone by accepting their terms and conditions …
Same here with a brand new sgs+, updating from 2.3.3 to 2.3.5. Packed downloaded, flashing hangs at 22%, emergency recovery does nothing because my pc cannot detect the phone…
Turned it in @ the shop where i bought it & they will send it to a samsung service centre.
Luckily i have warranty, but still, i will be left without phone for at least a few weeks i guess.
In a way i should have known it would go wrong, installing Kies and the correct drivers for my phone also proved to be a pain in the *ss that took 2 of my evening’s time.
My next phone will NOT be a samsung!
Why does Kies not sync with Calendar, memo and tasks when these feature on the phones?
My Samsung phone worked fine and synced great with Kies until the latest software upgrade. It no longer recognizes my phone and stalls out at 40%. We reloaded an old version of Kies on my computer and it worked right away.Â
I’ve hand my Samsung Galaxy S2 for about 11 months, no problems whatsoever until… I loaded up Kies, plugged the phone in to the USB and that’s it, I no longer receive emails, I have been getting error messages left right and centre!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Â I’ve tried to do a factory reset and all in vain 🙁 I wish I had never bothered
i think i also bricked my galaxy s
Kies is the biggest pile of **** out there. I’ve spent the last three days TRYING TO GET THE RUBBISH TO WORK, it wants to update my GII. Not a chance, I’ll live without it thanks. Lovely phone Samsung but your software support sucks!
For the sake of peace, I hope that Samsung does not support the South Korean army with software.
Kies in compination with the morons @ Samsungs help(less) desk. Great
Never had a problem with Kies… Guess I am very lucky 😉
As usual Samsung software is complete crud.
Don’t say you weren’t warned.
EVERY piece of software from that company has been hopelessly b0rken.
Hi
Just removes samsung Kies from my PC. Having installed it my PC appeared to be runniing on Coal. It’s running Windows XP and I downloaded the appropriate verion.
Like you I could not get KIES to hook up to my Galaxy Ace phone. Seems there is still a fair bit of development work required by Samsung.
Have removed Software as PC was driving me nuts.So slow.
Had an old Nokia 9500 Classic before and u could access PC to download files so easily.
Will go and vent my anger at the o2 shop. Not be much use but at least I’ll feel better.
Samsung Kies is quite simply the worst piece of software i’ve ever used. The only way i could update my phone was to remove the sd card and battery, this is the only way Kies will recognise the phone, otherwise you just get a continual connecting icon without it ever actually connecting. Absolute Rubbish, unusable piece of C**P
It took me a couple of months to get the Kies software to recognize my phone. The initial problem was that the Samsung Galaxy I bought came with an Android OS (Froyo) that was 2 versions old. The Samsung update (and technical support too, I might add) kept trying to install the most current version at the time (Ice Cream Sandwich)  but it kept failing because unbeknownst to me – or the program itself – it needed the intermediate version first (Gingerbread)! My provider had no idea what the problem was (and they not ponly sold me the phone but provide the service…). Samsung had no idea either, and the Samsung technical division (courtesy of a frustrated Samsung general technical support operator transferring me in-house) had no clue what the problem was. Wikipedia of all things came to the rescue when I finally got frustrated myself and wondered who came up with these names etc. and discovered the history of the software; thankfully I didn’t get seriously into the possibility of trying to cram something like elements of Honeycomb into my phone!
So eventually I got things to work swimmingly…until Kies wanted to update, which I did, and now I am cautiously skirting the aforementioned bricking division. Kies chews, no doubt about it!
My tasks this evening(s) will be to remove Kies (but first I have to ferret out a hidden Kies component running in the background that doesn’t show up anywhere, and close it, because Kies apparently can’t be removed until then it tells me), once that is accomplished I will embark on a journey to kick the OS back to Gingerbread and go from there.
It’s almost like working with Norton software a decade ago!
There’s my little rant to beef up the chorus!
Cheers!
ha ha ha after update Samsung kiest to my samsungnote GT N7000 is brick RIP
Samsung make great hardware, but it seems an elementry school student designs their software. Its slow, buggy, bloated. It shouldnt take 4 1/4 hours to download and instal kies on my computer (alienware) to update my Note to ICS
I agree. The only thing that saves Samsung from going the same way as Nokia (who had the same problem of great hardware and terrible software) is that google writes the basic stuff we use on their phones, and app writers make the rest.
Identicial experience and i mean identical. Im absolutely disgusted in myself ggoing for the second upgrade and to make things worse, i had a voice in my head telling me not to do it but i defied my better judgement. Sick Sick SIck. You should be ashamed samsung. If it was a useful brick it would be something but its just a flat black brick – &*^%
Kies is crap leave it alone, use Dev updates and Roms or just leave your phone factory, the suits at Samsung don’t worry about it because they use Apple phone’s lol No really, you know they are’nt going to have issues like the lowly consumer because head’s would roll! so don’t beleive the hype, go HTC it’s far better! case n point I had a HTC windows ph. converted to Android easily, put custom Cyan7 Rom, that phone was right up there with new Samsung tech just barely getting ICS now, beleive me if you study enough and have half a brain, you can even hv Jellybean on that phone of yours!
by the way whoever came up with Kies ought to be pimp slapped like the b… they are!
I wish I had read this page before I tried KIES – OMG It took about 4 hours to install on my PC and required 12 restarts to install all of the drivers. No it will only talk to my phone for the first 2 monutes, then it says my phone is not connected and that a new driver requires installing before it finds it again. UTTER CRAP. When they produce such good hardware, why cant they produce decent soft ware to go with it? grrrrrr
Kies is the worst piece of software i’ve used in years. Reminds me of a windows 95 install. As a developer I know how uncomplicated this should have been. Wake up Sumsung or we’ll all be heading back to Apple.
thanks for posting, been wavering on a Tablet purchase and this seals it for me – bye bye Samsung
Exactly the same thing has just happened to me,absolute nightmare,no help from Samsung or Orange/EE,unfortunately I did not back up,had no reason to think this was necessary,was supposed to be a simple update !! I have just purchased an iPhone and started all over again,expensive and infuriating mistake,would not entertain Samsung again,another lost customer…………..if anyone knows how to access phone to retrieve info please let me know .
2 HOURS TRYING TO DOWNLOAD 3 PICS ON MY HD. it freezes every time. Are you kidding me. This was last samsung i ever bought. kies randomly freezes my PC, hard reset 10 times. I really dont want to destroy my OS , or any hardware by constant hard reset, power on /off . grade 0/100